nursery. Beside it was a tray of surgical implements – scalpel, bone saw, and other horrible metal tools Jeffrey couldn’t name but hoped would never be put to use on his body. Powder-blue curtains hung on the window frame, and a wallpaper border with ducks and balloons could still be seen edging the ceiling. The rest of the wall was covered, however, with newspaper articles and photographs. The maniac collage that papered the walls included images of Lydia from the media, articles written about her and by her, covers from her books, articles about Juno, about the death of Robbie Hugo, baby pictures, some of the very articles that Lydia had clipped from the newspaper at the beginning of her interest in this case. Over it all, the rantings of a demented mind were scrawled in blood. Jeffrey saw immediately the message they had found on Lydia’s bedroom mirror among the rest of the deadly graffiti, including: Sinners must die…I am God’s warrior and evildoers shall feel my wrath…She will bring the message of God.
“Holy shit,’’ Lydia said as she walked in the door.
“His name is Bernard Hugo,’’ said Chief Morrow, “and he’s been a volunteer caretaker on and off at the church for the last six months. He used to be an orderly at the hospital, but after his son died and his wife left him, he lost it, stopped going to work, got fired.’’
“I know. His son died after a failed heart transplant,’’ said Lydia; “Juno visited him, supposedly attempted to heal him. And the boy died hours later.’’
Morrow thought on it a second. “You’re right. I had forgotten about that.’’
Lydia wanted to jump on him. How could he have not made these connections earlier? But she knew it wasn’t really fair. The whole thing was so insane.
“The guy doesn’t even have a speeding ticket, you know?’’ Morrow said, as if reading her mind. “There had always been rumors about him, according to my wife. Apparently he had been on track to become a surgeon years ago. But he’d had some kind of mental breakdown. He was on so much medication that he couldn’t even become a nurse after that. So he settled for being an orderly at St. Vincent’s Hospital.
“I remember when the kid died. My wife and I went to pay our respects and he was destroyed, I mean he could barely function. Then I heard a couple of months later from my wife that his wife had left him, went back to her family in Colorado. Then he lost his job. I wondered how he would survive but then I heard that he was doing some volunteer work at the Church of the Holy Name and I figured he’d found God.’’
“But maybe he was just looking for victims,’’ said Jeffrey.
“Or both,’’ said Lydia. “I think we have some more gardening to do.’’
Juno sat alone in the back pew of the church. His hands were neatly folded in his lap and his head hung low. The glow around him that Lydia had always perceived, seemed dim and she was not sure how to approach him. He was fragile and fading like a specter. She stood watching him, listening to the police shuffling around her, speaking in low voices as though mass were in session.
There was a horrific amount of blood splattered on the walls that contained the garden, across the flowers, and even on the face of the Virgin. A rosary lay near the door. Lydia didn’t hold out much hope for Father Luis. She had asked the police to hold off on digging up the garden for a few minutes, until she talked to Juno. And now she stood wondering how she would begin, his fear radiating off him like a visible aura. She approached him slowly.
Juno heard Lydia’s footfalls and sensed her hesitation. He wanted to tell her not to worry, that he already knew. But his voice failed him and he sat silent and waiting. She could not know that he had lost not only his uncle this day, the man who raised him, but his mother and father as well.
Sitting in the last pew, praying, Juno had become invisible to the police. They’d rushed into the church just minutes after his call. He heard them run through the living area behind the church and then move out to the garden, where, he noted, the rushing ended and voices became hushed. He could only imagine what they found there, for no one had told him. So he waited. Whispered phrases floated to him on the wind that blew in from the open door; phrases like “blood splatter,’’ “handprint,’’ “blood-soaked cloth.’’
Then, as two officers walked passed him, he overheard one of them whisper, “This poor guy has had nothing but tragedy in his life. His uncle was the only parent he ever had. I’ll tell you about it later.’’ He recognized the man’s voice as someone he knew from childhood, a boy named Jimmy O’Neill who had attended catechism classes at the church.
At first he was confused and wondered who Jimmy was talking about. Then he realized that he meant him, Juno. He almost laughed in disbelief as he thought, Until now I have never known any suffering. He couldn’t imagine what the man meant. His blindness, maybe?
But a cold dawning was moving over him. Then Juno remembered a day long ago on the playground behind the church. In a downward spiral of thought, he remembered Jimmy taunting him one day when they were children, making fun of his parents, saying that they had died in some horrible way. He remembered his conversation with his uncle. And then he remembered nothing else about the incident. It was a blank wall in his mind that he could not pass through. He remembered his uncle’s words: “Jimmy has told you something and I have told you something. You must look into your heart and decide what you believe. If someone told you that God did not exist, would you believe them?’’
He could not remember what he had decided that day. He could not remember thinking about what had happened to his parents ever again. He knew he had sewn his uncle’s story of his parents into his soul, like a jewel in the seam of a coat. The knowledge of it, though he never saw it or touched it or thought of it after that day, was a secret treasure that he owned, one that defined him. Now it was as if he’d ripped open the seam and found not a gem, but a lump of clay.
As he sat in the pew, Juno’s knowledge of himself and his life turned to quicksand. He was afraid to speak as Lydia approached him. He was afraid he would not recognize the sound of his own voice. She sat beside him and placed her hand on his.
“I know how you are feeling right now. And what I am about to tell you is not going to comfort you,’’ she said softly.
He nodded.
“Outside, the wall is splattered with blood. A lot of blood. It appears as if the garden has been disturbed as well. In a few minutes, we are going to start digging there. And I am not sure what we’ll find, but…’’
He just nodded again and held up his hand. Eventually, he mustered his voice and whispered, “Do you know what happened to my parents?’’
“Your parents?’’ she asked, after a pause, hoping he hadn’t lost his mind. “Do you mean your uncle, Juno?’’
“No. I mean my parents. Do you know what happened to them?’’
“Yes…’’ she said, unsure where he was leading.
“Will you tell me?’’
“Are you saying you don’t know?’’
“Yes.’’
“What have you thought all these years?’’ she asked, incredulous.
“If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me. Or you’d think I’m insane.’’
“Try me.’’
In the lilting voice one would use to tell a fairy tale to a child, Juno told Lydia the story he had believed all his life.
“My mother was a beautiful angel held prisoner by an aging wizard. For sixteen years, he kept her hidden in a dovecote at the top of a tower with a hundred steps. Her hair was as black as the bottom of the ocean and her eyes as blue as ice. And the wizard loved her in his own twisted way. But because she was stolen from God Himself, he hid her among the doves. He fed her only the finest fruit and honey.
“Serena, my mother, was not unhappy. She loved the company of the birds and the wizard was kind to her. And she had been in the tower for so long that she considered it her home. She had no desire for freedom, she could barely conceive of what that would mean. The wizard told her the world was a dark and dangerous place, and he kept her there to protect her from the evil forces that would surely try to harm her. She was grateful.
“In the evenings when the moon was full, Serena would sing for the doves. Beautiful songs in an angel’s voice that would carry over the trees and up to the stars. One of these nights, a handsome young shepherd, named Manuel, was walking home from tending his sheep when he heard Serena’s song. He followed the sound of her voice and saw her in the window at the top of the tower. Instantly, he fell in love.
